Talk:Maginot Line

I'm not sure the description of the Magniot Line metaphor in the article is appropriate. In most cases, the context where it is used is for something like missile defence, where it might defend against the specific threat it was intended for but is easily evaded by a more flexible attacker. --Robert Merkel 07:21, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A comparison of the Maginot Line with proposed missile defense system would indeed be an analogy (literally true) rather than a metaphor (figurative speech), but the phrase is indeed used metaphorically in journalism and literature. In the last line of the novel A Separate Peace, the narrator, Gene, reflects on the defenses he and his prep-school classmates placed between between one another:

All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way–if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.^[1]

A.T.S. in Texas (talk) 23:49, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Are you sure that the Line was constructed in the wake of WW I?

Any interpretation of the Maginot Line has to take account of the catastrophic French loss. The Maginot Line was a component of a French strategy, which failed.

This is a poor analysis. During WWI, the Germans, utilizing a modified Schlieffen Plan attacked France through Belgium where four years of war ravaged Northeastern France. Between WWI and WWII France builds the Maginot line to defend the shared border with Germany knowing full well that Germany had attacked in the first war through Belgium. The French strategy was to secure the French Army's right flank with fewest number of soldiers and to actually fight the war in Belgium. The flaw in the French strategy wasn't the Maginot line, the line achieved its purpose, it compelled the Germans to flank it. Problem with the strategy was they didn't think the Germans were coming through the Ardennes.

France never lost, Otherwise we would be Germans. The French strategy has completed is 5 missions. (cf. article) Martial BACQUET 20:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It is a ridiculous bias to defend the Maginot Line as a qualified success, just because you have an antiquarian interest in it.

What's my interest? To spend a lot of money to restore historical true?

The Maginot Line was not "designed" to channel a German invasion thru the Ardennes. That was a surprise.

If you read more documents over this subjet you will see that it was completely scheduled. Martial BACQUET 20:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The German invasion of France in the first World War had come through Belgium, precisely because that's where the necessary rail network was. The Low Countries are a highway to France, offering no natural obstacles, and a good highway and rail network. The Germans would prefer Belgium and the Netherlands in all circumstances, to move very large armies; to think otherwise is silly.

Maginot Line was conceived after the first World War. Belgium was a neutral country witch will become an Allied in case of Germany prefer Belgium. Martial BACQUET 20:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, the Maginot Line could have been an element in a rational and successful French strategy for World War II, but this is history, not counterfactual fantasy.

The Maginot Line is rational, it anchored the French right flank. The French wanted the decisive battle to occur in Belgium, NOT France. The French KNEW the Germans came through Belgium in WWI; they knew the Maginot Line didn't defend the Franco-Belgian border; they KNEW the Germans would come through Belgium again and at the end of the day the Anglo-French army amassed against the Germans IN Belgium outnumbered the Germans. The blunder is in not covering the Ardennes; not in the Maginot Line.

It is perfectly sensible to point out that the Maginot Line could economize on the forces needed to defend France. To say that the Maginot Line made anything whatsoever "impossible" with regard to a German conquest of France, is unsupported. BruceW07 23:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If France knew that Germany would attack through Belgium again, then why did they even bother to build the Maginot Line? Why would they need to funnel the Germans into the Low Countries if they were going to attack there anyway? The idea that the Maginot Line was a success is wishful thinking at best and historical revisionism at worst. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.141.176.99 (talk) 01:38, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the last comment. The article even backs this up with a cited statement saying 'The fortification system successfully dissuaded a direct attack. However, it was strategically ineffective, as the Germans did indeed invade Belgium, flanked the Maginot Line, and proceeded relatively unobstructed.' If the French wanted to funnel the Germans through the Belgium border than how did the Germans pass 'relatively unobstructed.' This whole idea of the Maginot Line being successful is total bias and unfounded. This article should talk more about the weakness of it since it was unsuccessful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.141.137.122 (talk) 05:38, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources back up the cited statement. The France defense strategy failed. The Maginot Line (the parts that were built) worked as advertised, even after the supporting infantry formations were withdrawn. The overall French strategy is universally acknowledged as a disaster in any case. Whether or not the Maginot Line was a good investment is debatable, but its performance in combat is a documented success. No gros ouvrage fell to direct German attack.. Several poorly-supported or sited petits ouvrages fell, but had litlte effect on the overall performance of the Line. The Germans attacked where the Line wasn't, and French combat forces were not able to deal with the concentrated attack. Please cite sources for your opinions. Acroterion _(talk) 16:22, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

The sources? The article is my source, that quote was from the article. Besides your basically agreeing with me anyway, it failed because there was a hole in the line. No one is arguing that the parts built were a failure, the whole fact that they didn't bother to build in that one section makes the line a failure. Since you just said that the line worked everywhere else why wouldn't they just make it through Belgium border as well? People on this discussion claim that it was not built there so the French could fight the Germans where they wanted them, but since that also failed the whole defense system is proved inadequate. I don't believe anyone has ever doubted that the line was successful where it was built, but merely that the line shouldn't have had a gap in it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.141.137.134 (talk) 00:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

By sources, I mean reliable published works on the subject apart from Wikipedia (which isn't a reliable source, being user-generated). Again, the French war strategy, taken as a whole, was a disaster. The decision not to build the Maginot Line to the sea (based on political, technical, military and economic grounds), not to fortify the area around Sedan, where the frontier was pierced, and the decision to rely on inundations in the Saar, were bad ideas. There wasn't enough money in the 1930s to go around, so work came to a halt by 1935 or so. The construction of the part of the Line that was actually finished led to the "Maginot Mentality." However, the line that was built performed as advertised. The Germans just went around the western end and defeated the French field army that was supposed to have stopped them in Belgium. By far the greatest fault for the French defeat may be laid at the feat of the numerous and well-equipped French army, which mounted a passive, conservative, slow-moving defense against a blitzkrieg. This is what is reflected in published works, which is what Wikipedia goes by for article substance.

The consensus of published works is that the French Army expected to defeat the Germans in Belgium, having made a direct attack across the French-German frontier impracticable by means of the Maginot Line, and that they did not expect that a mechanized army could move through the Ardennes. Both assumptions were wrong, but the assumption that the Germans would not directly confront the line was correct - I haven't seen any modern commentary from the past decade or so that suggests that the line was planned to "channel" an attack farther west - there was a lot of new scholarship starting about 1999, when the movement to preserve parts of the Line became active. The Maginot Line was a component of the defense of France, not the entire defense. The French Army was larger than the German Army. The French preferred to fight the Germans in a location that would be easy to supply, preferably by rail, and preferably not in France. That was Belgium. Unfortunately, things didn't work according to plan. Acroterion _(talk) 03:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I would agree with most of what you wrote, Acroterion. I am not certain if this article should be saying the Maginot line was "stragetically ineffective". The Maginot Line was intended not to be broken, and indeed the Germans concluded that it could not be broken, which is why they went around it. Strategically speaking, the Maginot Line worked. It is just that the rest of the French strategy and tactics were rotten. However does not mean the Maginot line was "ineffective". That book by Keylor has interesting things to say about the subject, and I'll bring some more material in from Keylor's book in the near-future.--A.S. Brown (talk) 04:05, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

The Maginot Line was a complete failure. It did not prevent Germany from overtaking France, it didn't do anything it was supposed to do. The Germans did NOT conclude it could not be broken - they simply found an easier and quicker way to defeat it... They went around it (and through it). You logic is faulty, and I'm being polite in that description. The investment in the Maginot Line cost France their country, which they would not now have if the USA had not won it back for them. There really is nothing else to say about the Maginot Line. It was a bad idea, poorly executed, and did not achieve any real goals, most significant of which would have been keeping the Germans out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.194.39.86 (talk) 09:36, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Thinking of rewriting the leading sentence as follows:

The Maginot Line (French: Ligne Maginot, IPA: [liɲ maʒino]) was a line of concrete fortifications, weapon installations, and obstacles that France constructed during the 1930's. The line was a response to France's experience in World War I, was constructed during the run-up to World War II, and was named after the then French Minister of War, André Maginot. It was intended to fortify France against invasion from Germany, Switzerland, and Luxembourg, although German forces ultimately found ways about it.

That final sentence might be replaced with the ultimate fate of the line, it becoming surrounded by German forces and ultimately surrendering at the order of Maxime Weygand.

Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter422 (talk • contribs) 19:16, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

The current sentence gives impression that there were not fortifications at Belgian and Luxemburgish borders. The new sentence would correct that. 87.94.27.250 (talk) 07:17, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

The article itself specifies that one of the points of the line was to "To push the enemy to circumvent it while passing by Switzerland or Belgium"; so how does the Germans doing what the French wanted, make - per the lede - the line strategically ineffective? This same point is addressed by RS such as Jackson, Julian (2003) The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940; who also highlights the point of the line was to force the Germans to do what they did i.e. outflank it.

Yes, the line is open to criticism; but parts of this article seem to be placing unwarranted charges rather than discussing it in context with the true culprit: two decades of French military thinking, an inflexible strategy that expected a German repeat of the First World War, lacking the reinforcements to seal off a penetration of the Ardennes (a point, per Jackson, highlighted as early as 1938), and the weak social nature of the Third Republic at the time.66.77.160.179 (talk) 11:05, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

(Please wait until consensus is reached before changing the text under discussion. Thanks.)

The purpose of the Line was to halt any direct German attack long enough to give the French (and any allies) time to counterattack the German forces with their mobile forces via Belgium. The Germans, however, sent only a secondary decoy force into Belgium for the French mobile forces to engage, while the main German attack was through the Ardennes, outflanking both the Line and all French forces. The French confidently relied on the Line to eliminate any choice the Germans had on where to attack, and very quickly lost because it failed to do that.

It's true that France probably couldn't stand up to Germany militarily in the long run (a couple years or so), but that's because of having less manpower and industrial might, not because of some inherent weakness in the French themselves.

All of what I'm stating here is taken from the current article, which is supported by sources. That definitely can be changed, but only by proving the current sources are challenged and overturned by providing better sources, not editor opinions or WP:SYNTH.

So, any such sources? --A D Monroe III^(talk) 13:38, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Please point to the inline citation that supports the assertion that the defensive line was "strategically ineffective"; the terms "ineffective" and "strategic" do not even appear in the article except for that line. It would appear that a nice juicy ^{[citation needed]} tag is indeed required, because as it stands it is the claim of an editors opinion.66.77.160.179 (talk) 15:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I've just noticed that a new section, Maginot Line#Post-war criticism has been started by Zazpot. I think this is an excellent idea, both from the readers' prospective (any evaluation of success, very important for this subject, should be combined and fully explained in one place), and as a side-effect should resolve this discussion (and the following one). The article is currently actually rather poor at making a consistent evaluation. Perhaps we should focus on carefully expanding that section, at least until we hit a more specific snag? --A D Monroe III^(talk) 16:49, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

A reasonable suggestion, following which one would argue that the lede be updated to reflect the sourced material.66.77.160.179 (talk) 16:55, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, A D Monroe III and 66.77.160.179. I agree, and - like you - hope that this might be the best way to handle the issue. The Maginot Line isn't my topic, and I don't know any great sources off the top of my head. Still, I'm sure that the regular editors of the article will have no trouble finding WP:RS on both sides of the fence (and indeed straddling it) as to the value of the Line. I hope the section I created will provide a venue in which to explain to readers the range of viewpoints expressed by historians etc since the war, and the reasoning behind them. Over to you :) Zazpot (talk) 18:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

@A D Monroe III:

1. "Especially to do not removes sources": Mea Culpa. For whatever reasons, the second definition did not appear when I looked at the website earlier (most likely due to the limited internet connection at this work location).
2. "Having failed in its purpose...":

• 1) Based off what I can see ("Definition of Maginot Line: 1 :a line of defensive fortifications built before World War II to protect the eastern border of France but easily outflanked by German invaders; 2 :a defensive barrier or strategy that inspires a false sense of security") the citation does not reflect that the line "failed its purpose".
• 2) How did it fail in its purpose? What source or inline citation supports the notion that it failed? One will note that the entire section on the Battle of France and the aftermath does not pass judgment on the line, and to boot are mostly un-sourced. The dictionary definition does not attribute the line to be a failure; unless you are basing this off "easily outflanked by German invaders", which is a stretch and inferring meaning (and RS point out, being outflanked was the entire point of the line).

The article (which is unsourced in this respect) states: {{quotebox|*To avoid a surprise attack and to give the French an alarm

• To cover the mobilisation of the French Army (which took between two and three weeks)
• To save manpower (France counted 39 million inhabitants, Germany 70 million)
• To protect Alsace and Lorraine (returned to France in 1918) and their industrial basin
• To be used as a basis for a counter-offensive
• To push the enemy to circumvent it while passing by Switzerland or Belgium
• To hold the enemy while the main army could be brought up to reinforce the line
• To show non-aggressive posture, and compel the British to help France if Germany invaded Belgium
• To push Belgium into the war, by leaving it open to an attack from Germany|}

The French were not surprised, mobilized successfully, the line was used as the basis for the limited offensive into Germany, it deterred the main German assault being across the French border, and it forced the Germans to move around the barrier (the fact that the Germans hoodwinked the French in Benelux is not the lines fault). The lede, in this respect, contradicts the main body of the article.

Per RS, such as Jackson, Julian (2003), The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 pp. 30 ff. the point of the line was to deter a cross-border assault, funnel the main German attack around the barrier that would allow the best divisions of the French Army to engage it on foreign soil. Your retort "Agree it's purpose was to funnel the Germans to attack through Belgium, not through Lux and Ardennes. Thus, Fail" is just semantics. You agree with the purpose, yet call it achieving its purpose a fail. You have even reverted an attempt to reword it to avoid controversy, or to even match up with what the source and article states.66.77.160.179 (talk) 16:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Is this any different in substance from the discussion just above? I don't see how consensus here could be different from any consensus there. Let's not duplicate all the evidence and arguments. Please either make the very notable distinction of this subject clear, or take this (just sources and quick points) to the existing discussion above. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 16:23, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• The paragraph sourced to "Nichols, Kenneth D. (1987). The Road to Trinity: A Personal Account of How America's Nuclear Policies Were Made. New York: William Morrow and Company. ISBN 0-688-06910-X". Google Books has two copies online (1 and 2). I was unable to locate any pages or index references that mention the Maginot Line, Metz, or General Brousseau. If anyone has access to this source, please insert the correct page numbers into the article.
• Likewise: Zaloga, Steven J. (June 2010). Operation Nordwind 1945: Hitler's Last Offensive in the West. Osprey Publishing. 96 pages; ISBN 978-1-84603-683-5 A page needed tag has been there since March 2013. Copy online does not include page numbers, and it would seem the paragraph is based off several pages (some of which are not included).
• Ambrose: the isbn provided was, per the OCLC, for the 2016 edition that was printed in London (not NY per the article; not sure if that is a minor detail). Updated the info, but we need to ensure that the page number is correct due to the edition vagueness.
• Cain, Not Forgetting James Bond; likewise. What page number? No previews at present on Google Books.
• The first two paragraphs on "Planning and Construction" are not sourced, and the emphasis on Marshal Joffre as the leading proponent may be misleading. It currently reads:

The defences were first proposed by Marshal Joseph Joffre. He was opposed by modernists such as Paul Reynaud and Charles de Gaulle, who favoured investment in armour and aircraft. Joffre had support from Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain,

Contrast this with the article by Robert Wilde on Thoughtco.com:

The Two Schools of Defense

The first school, whose main exponent was Marshall Joffre, wanted large quantities of troops based in a line of small, heavily defended areas from which counter-attacks could be launched against anyone advancing through the gaps. The second school, led by Pétain, advocated a long, deep, and constant network of fortifications which would militarize a large area of the eastern border and hark back to the Hindenburg line. ... In 1922, the recently promoted Minister for War began to develop a compromise, based largely on the Pétain model; this new voice was André Maginot.^[1]

Further, there is no mention of the Maginot Line in the Wikipedia article on Joseph Joffre but an extensive discussion in the article on Philippe Petain. That discussion describes Petain as advocating armor and aircraft, but the civilian government balking at the cost, forming a commission led by Joffre, and Petain surveying the border regions and reporting back to the commission with a defensive plan. A.T.S. in Texas (talk) 21:39, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

This article fails to describe what a failure the Maginot Line was. They were fighting the last war with their fortifications, expecting trench warfare like WWI, and failing to comprehend the new face of warfare characterized by mechanized mobile infantry, radio communications, improved weaponry, coordinated air support, strafing and bombardment. It reads like a whitewash by antiquarian French apologists trying to rewrite history and cover up the infamy and shame of the French panic, collapse and surrender to Germany in barely six weeks in the Battle of France and the subsequent collaborationist Vichy regime. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.244.137.86 (talk) 16:22, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

France did not rely on the Maginot Line to the extent that you are asserting, it was always expected that a mobile campaign would take place at the western end and in Belgium. You are oversimplifying - you must provide sources rather than editorializing about the French. Acroterion (talk) 16:27, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

How can something be "strategically effective" when you promptly surrender? It's like saying most of a blown tire was strategically effective except for the part with the hole in it. Especially when France poured massive amounts of resources into the white elephant that was the Maginot Line. By the way, no need to provide citations for well-known history on the talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.54.127.168 (talk) 22:46, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Please explain what changes you think should be made to the article, then, with sources - this is not a forum for your views on what was accomplished or not accomplished, it is a place to discuss article improvement. Acroterion (talk) 23:10, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Interpolated the Mginot line section from French war planning 1920–1940 with suitable emendations. Keith-264 (talk) 10:46, 20 October 2025 (UTC)